Guazi Moves Earth 1
Liu Chengrui
刘成瑞
Production date
2007
Media
photograph
Measurements
120 x 88 cm
Notes
Liu Chengrui’s durational endurance performance, Guazi Moves Earth (2008), is documented in a video and series of still photographs. During the first phase from 2007 to 2009, this ongoing project was performed nine times in different cities both within and outside China. The shirtless artist, covered in dirt and wearing a feather in his long hair, crawls on his belly along the ground, transporting soil from one place to another about fifty metres away. Holding the earth in his mouth, he moves it laboriously and painfully from the outside world to an interior space, one mouthful at a time. He spits it out into neat piles on the ground before recording the time of each deposit with a piece of chalk. Like an earthworm inching along, digesting and excreting earth, Liu Chengrui is engaged in an apparently inscrutable, perhaps even completely meaningless, activity.
The action of pointlessly moving dirt from one place to the other in Liu Chengrui’s performance suggests a cynical response to the planned Socialist utopia and the possibility of moving actual or metaphorical mountains. In one iteration of this project, the action takes place at Beijing’s Left and Right Art Zone in a single day, from 9.00am to 5.00pm, a deliberate reference to the working hours of office workers in the new economy. The video is compelling, providing a visceral sense of the sheer physical pain involved, the scraping of elbows and knees, the cramps and muscle spasms. We can almost taste the soil mixing with saliva. The artist says, ‘We were all born from the earth and earth has always been very important in traditional Chinese culture and philosophy.’ In the Chinese cosmos, Earth lies at the centre of the compass. One of the five essential elements, Earth balances yin and yang, masculine and feminine. Its energy is stabilising, and it is associated with qualities of patience, hard work and practicality. Other attributes are stubbornness and determination. These qualities are abundantly present in Liu Chengrui’s Guazi Moves Earth.
The action of pointlessly moving dirt from one place to the other in Liu Chengrui’s performance suggests a cynical response to the planned Socialist utopia and the possibility of moving actual or metaphorical mountains. In one iteration of this project, the action takes place at Beijing’s Left and Right Art Zone in a single day, from 9.00am to 5.00pm, a deliberate reference to the working hours of office workers in the new economy. The video is compelling, providing a visceral sense of the sheer physical pain involved, the scraping of elbows and knees, the cramps and muscle spasms. We can almost taste the soil mixing with saliva. The artist says, ‘We were all born from the earth and earth has always been very important in traditional Chinese culture and philosophy.’ In the Chinese cosmos, Earth lies at the centre of the compass. One of the five essential elements, Earth balances yin and yang, masculine and feminine. Its energy is stabilising, and it is associated with qualities of patience, hard work and practicality. Other attributes are stubbornness and determination. These qualities are abundantly present in Liu Chengrui’s Guazi Moves Earth.
Accession number
2015.562